Joshua 15:13

And unto Caleb. This passage, at least from Joshua 15:15 , is found with the slightest possible variation in 1:1-36 . It has been argued from the variations that the one passage was not copied from the other, but that both were derived from a common document. No such conclusion, however, can be safely drawn from the text. For first, the present narrative deals exclusively with this portion of the history of Caleb. That in Judges, down to verse 12, deals more generally with the subject, including the exploits of Caleb, under the general history of the progress of Judah. But from the time that the history becomes that of Caleb in particular, the agreement between the two narratives is verbal, including the very unusual word צנח , with one or two most insignificant exceptions. Thus we have הָבָהִ לִּי for תְנָה לִּי , we have גלית for גליות , and we have מִמֶּנּוּ interpolated in 1:13 , and Othniel (or Kenez) is spoken of as the younger brother of Caleb. But unless we hold that it was a sacred duty of the writer in Judges to reproduce every single word of the narrative in Joshua, there is nothing whatever that can support the conclusion that the writer in Judges was not copying the earlier narrative. The variations are such as would naturally happen where a writer was transferring, a narrative to his pages with a desire to give the exact sense of the original without tying himself to every particular word. Since the use of inverted commas has been introduced we can find multitudes of instances where a writer, when professing to quote another accurately, has introduced far more variations into his quotation than are to be found here, where the writer, though quoting the Book of Joshua, and quoting it correctly, does not say that he is doing so. No one doubts that Jeremiah in Jeremiah 48:1-47 . is quoting Isaiah 15:1-9 ; although the passages are not verbally coincident. We may safely regard this quotation of the Book of Joshua in that of Judges, as under all ordinary laws of criticism an evidence that the former book was in existence when the latter was written, just as the quotations of Deuteronomy in Joshua may naturally be taken as evidence that the Book of Deuteronomy was in existence when that of Joshua was composed. The son of Jephunneh. (see Joshua 14:6 ). A part. Literally, a lot. Among . Rather, in the midst of. Our version is obscure here. Arba the father of Anak, which city is Hebron. (see Joshua 14:6-15 ). Keil thinks that he was the tribe father, or chief (sheikh, as the Arabs would call him), of the children of Anak.